A Catalogue of Selected Rhetorical Devices Used in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

The following catalogue is considerably abbreviated. I have excerpted thirty-seven terms, nineteen of which are cross-references either to entries on Poe in a more general catalogue of mine in the Winter 1997 issue of Style (hereafter referred to as Zimmerman, "Catalogue"--see the bibliography), or to an earlier defense of Poe as stylist in Language and Discourse (hereafter as Zimmerman, "Versatility"--see the bibliography). The other eighteen terms are explored here with definitions, exemplifications, and mini-essays that serve several functions: to offer my own insights on Poe's techniques as a writer; to consider how his styles relate to his themes and characteristic concerns; to inspire further explorations and insights on the part of Poe scholars; to summarize some of the best observations made by others who have examined him as stylist; to uncover some of his own ideas and rules about writing; and, finally, to defend Poe as a deliberate, conscientious verbal craftsman.

Following other rhetors (for example, Corbett and Lanham), I provide each term in boldface but in Roman rather than italic lettering; subsequently, within each entry the names of the classical tropes and schemes are italicized according to the conventional treatment of most foreign words and phrases. Often the specific exemplifications within quoted passages are also in boldface for clarity, unless the entire passage is itself the exemplification. Quotations from Poe are from the Collected Works, edited by James A. Harrison (1902); citations are to volume and page.

ADYNATA: see Zimmerman, "Catalogue" (735-37).

ALLEGORIA: see Zimmerman, "Catalogue" (737-38).

ANADIPLOSIS: the repetition of the last word or words of one line or clause at the beginning of the next:

Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain.... ("The Tell-Tale Heart" 5: 91)

Since, like other devices of repetition, anadiplosis can express emotion, we see how the repetitiousness here emphasizes the narrator's mounting frenzy--a frenzy that is quite at odds with the calmness with which he had promised to tell the story. Anadiplosis and near-anadiplosis seem to have another function in "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," for this time it enables the statements of one of these angelic beings to dovetail into those of the other--perhaps suggesting a linguistic and emotional harmony impossible to any other than metaphysical beings in Aidenn, the interstellar, ethereal region:

CHARMION

Let us converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language of the world which has so fearfully perished.

EIROS

Most fearfully, fearfully!--this is indeed no dream.

CHARMION

Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

EIROS

Mourned, Charmion?--oh deeply. To that last hour of all, there hung a cloud of incense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.

CHARMION

And that last hour--speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave--at that period, if I remember aright. the calamity which overwhelmed you was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative philosophy of the day.